Numerical Suite for Gaseous Plasma Antennas Simulation

A gaseous plasma antenna (GPA) is a device in which a plasma medium is used to transmit or receive electromagnetic (EM) waves. This work is devoted to the presentation of a numerical suite for the simulation of a GPA that consists of a plasma module for the estimation of the plasma parameters (e.g., electron density profile) and its electrical response, along with an EM module to compute the antenna properties (e.g., radiation pattern and input impedance). The two problems are handled separately: first, the plasma discharge is solved, and then, the antenna properties are computed. In particular, the plasma module has been implemented on the C++ library OpenFOAM, whereas the EM module relies on the well-established commercial numerical tool CST Microwave Studio. The results of the plasma module have been compared against experimental measurements performed on a discharge driven by a hollow cathode and a cold cathode fluorescence lamp (CCFL). Finally, the numerical suite has been exploited to characterize a realistic plasma dipole: higher values of discharge current (equivalently of plasma density) allow to achieve higher maximum gain and an input impedance closer to the one of a metallic dipole. Moreover, the possibility of electronically shifting the resonance frequency by tens of megahertz has been proved.